Can you hear me now? Scientists at the University of Toronto are working on a way of minimizing a bane of mobile talkers: background noise. Their novel dual microphone system--which highlights a speaker's voice and removes extraneous sounds--could be miniaturized within two years, they say, making it less noisy to reach out and touch someone.
Parham Aarabi and Guangji Shi designed a signal enhancement algorithm that employs two microphones and a number of filters. A computer chip analyzes the amount of time it takes sounds to arrive at the two microphones and determines which signals arise from a speaker--and are thus important--and which come from extraneous activity and should be removed. “In typical environments there is background noise and reverberations that make it hard to carry on a cell phone conversation,” Aarabi says. “This system employs two microphones that, just like the two human ears, focus on the speaker's voice and filter out other noises.” 
via: scientificamerican.com
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